My Home Group plans Rs 500 crore startup fund

The group proposes to invest from this fund in various attractive startups and also in buyouts of scaled-up businesses over the next five yearsCR Sukumar | ET Bureau | Updated: July 26, 2016, 11:54 IST

Rameswar Rao JupallyMy Home group, Telangana's largest business house, is preparing to set up a Rs 500 crore equity fund to invest in startups.

"Our boys are keen on setting aside an equity fund and are looking at investing in emerging businesses. We may begin the fund with around Rs 100 crore and expand it to around Rs 500 crore over the next five years," founder Jupally Rameswar Rao told ET in an interview.

The Hyderabad-headquartered group has interests in real estate, cement and power businesses. Rao said the group has for med a dedicated research wing comprising chartered accounts, finance professionals, legal professionals and analysts to explore business opportunities and has already invested in a few.

"The dedicated research and investment team will take up due diligence of startups as well as scaled-up businesses. Pharmaceuticals is one of the areas that we think is worth exploring among the scaled-up businesses," Rao said.

The group, which is currently grooming the new generation of promoters and their business ideas, proposes to invest from this fund in various attractive startups and also in buyouts of scaled-up businesses over the next five years.

Besides, the group is weighing options to buy stressed infrastructure firms across the country that are on the block. The group firm My Home Cement, where it divested 50% in favour of Irish building materials firm CRH for EUR 290 million in 2008, bought ailing Sree Jayajyothi Cements from Shreeram group for Rs 1,400 crore in 2013.

The group, which has built over 10 million square feet of residential and commercial real estate space since inception, has launched projects spanning nearly 16 million sq ft and involving investments of about Rs 5,000 crore that it aims to complete in three years.